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Saturday, May 05, 2012

Star Trek Deep Space Nine

From a very early age I was saturated in Star Wars and Star Trek, along with many other things like Disney movies and trippy 80's fantasy movies and Rogers and Hammerstein musicals- because of my mom. She was a woman who exuded passion about a lot of things. Star Trek and Star Wars were two of those things that she was really rather passionate about in her fandom bunch. She also was passionate about painting ceramic things for a long while but that almost seemed like it fizzled after a while.
Anyway, when I was very young, the first thing I can remember watching with my mom aside from The Little Mermaid. In Theaters. When I was 2. I am serious. is Star Trek Deep Space Nine. I remember it for the Bread Heads, my affectionate nickname for the Ferengi, of whom I was deeply interested in Rom and Nog. Not so much Quark because he kinda freaked me out.
If I remember correctly and if wikipedia and StarTrek.com are right on their dates, Deep Space Nine ended when I was seven, and was followed by a Star Trek that I was MUCH more interested in for a long time: Star Trek Voyager.
I honestly feel a little bad for geeking out so hardcore about that show for so long. Because, as I'll explain in a bit, the countless re-watchings of the show have lead me to believe it to be the ALMOST weakest series in the entire fandom. And that's saying a lot, because I was pretty interested for the first half of the first season in Enterprise, which I will always loudly proclaim to be the weakest series and the most pointless series but kind of the prettiest series because it had some dang good costumes and aliens and stuff.
Anyway, it kind of became a thing for me and mom to sit together and watch Star Trek when it came in reruns for the season (she didn't want me to watch something questionable for a 7 year old, go mom!) and I don't remember a lot from those first few viewings of it, but I do remember that I thought the Doctor was a really interesting character, and now I've completely gone back on that. Yes, he's got his quirks, but they make him much more of an annoyance on par with Jar Jar Binks than make him even remotely interesting as a character.
Well when I was around 11 or 12 Star Trek Voyager was being released on DVD. Or maybe it was DS9 first. I don't really remember all I know is that it was around the same time that my mom was spending probably $100 a week on Star Wars figurines because Episode 1 had just come out in theaters and there were SO many toys.
So my mom bought the seasons of it, one by one, and kept asking if I was gonna sit down and watch with her. Me, being an almost teenager, was like WHATEVER, NO WAY, EW TREK YUCK.
So she watched them all herself, sometimes I'd be out and I'd catch a half hour of an episode but mostly I was above that whole Trek thing.
But then the other series came out on DVD and she was buying those.
And she decided to rewatch both series.
And the Bread Heads caught my eye, but Seven of Nine was more interesting.
And so it began. I watched probably 6 episodes that time, the next rewatch I watched probably 10, and so on.
The last time she rewatched the series, I saw probably 40 or 50 episodes of Voyager and closer to the entirety of Deep Space Nine. I cried when Jadzia died, cried at Sisko leaving, cried at the way they closed out the series... I laughed at Quark's schemes and Nog and Jake's ability to get in trouble. I felt for the Federation during the Dominion War and just generally geeked the fuck out. Seriously. I wrote a fanfic. I'm not kidding, you can read it right here, but don't say I didn't warn you. It's pretty... well. I was VERY proud of it when I wrote it, let's leave it at that.
I really connected with Deep Space Nine and that's one of the things I'm actually really angry about right now. I'm angry that my mom died and that because she died and because Star Trek is so heavily tied to her in my mind I can't make it through the opening title to Deep Space Nine without crying much less any of the episodes. I'm pissed at that stupid anesthesiologist for not following the plan he was supposed to and just give her a spinal tap. No he had to knock her out.
I lost my best friend, my mommy. I also lost Star Trek (all incarnations) and even to an extent, Star Wars. Family Guy. The Tudors.
Anyway, I just needed to blog about Star Trek today. I hope you enjoyed me geeking out, and yes, if you like the fanfic, feel free to harass me for the sequel because that's the only way it's ever gonna get done.